Response to R. King editorial

Ferrus · Armchair Activist

But, alas, it is, to use a somewhat controversial term, something of a cultural clash. The Danish cartoon issue highlighted this more than anything.

The problem is an essential difference in the perception of propriety vis-a-vis communication. For the Islamic world anything that impungns or denigrates the Qu'ran is, ipso facto, morally reprehensible. Insulting Mohammed is wrong by Islamic standards - though clearly this would clash with our sense of free speech. Do we support free speech or not? I don't know, it is a deeply complex issue, but it is time I think to accept that our liberal notions of society are paper thin. They do not offer a model whereby everyone can live in harmony because liberalism in itself makes positive moral judgements about how one should live and act - at times incompatable with others.

From a liberal perspective, why shouldn't we insult and poke fun at religious figures? Free speech, satire, and the like are all constitutive of a healthy political enviroment according to liberal doctrine. Yet to someone who believes any such figures are truths and that anyone who impugns such truths is a reprobate - well clearly these are moral codes that will clash.

I find a great deal of what you call "leftist" material deeply patronising towards Muslims - and other groups I may add - tending to assume they share the same basic values without ever really asking and listening to what they say. Take an article in Redbrick recently regarding a dalliance between a student here and a Muslim girl: does he not realise that his very going out with her (let alone having sex with her!) is deeply offense to Muslims?

I am referring to the simple fact that a Muslim man is allowed to marry a Christian or Jewish woman but a Muslim woman must marry a Muslim man - because in Islamic cultures children follow the religion of their parents. As well as this Islam forbids sex before marriage. These to Muslims are the very words and orders of God, that inform all aspects of life, not happy little beliefs that inform behaviour at home that are discarded as they become happy friendly liberals in the political or public sphere. This attitude adopted by so many is so patronising and subtlely racist - they should adopt our values in public becuase, of course, our nice values of liberal democracy must be better by virtue of its having been ours!

The veil debate is interesting - but then so is the attitude towards say, homosexuality or creationism. It is "Islamaphobic" to point out that many Muslims think homosexuality is a sin or that they believe in creationism - but a wonderful little joke if you talk of Christians believing the very same thing. Why do they belive this this? Is it because these self proclaimed "moderns" believe that the white people should really know better and that these Muslims are simply acting out silly little superstitions from their "primative" culture and we must simply ignore them and not listen to what they say if we are to be friendly citizens? The arrogance towards other cultures that is tacit in the discourse of many that I hear - the so called educated - is almost as pungent as that overtly displayed by many of the white working class. It is just wrapped up in nice shibboleths of liberalism and socialism though, so it is all good.

I would like to add, before febrile minds (such as are commonplace among middle class campaign socialist students) that such cultural differences are by no means a pretext for a "class of cultures" but rather an invitation for true and ernest conversation of how to live together *not* a facile and supercillious attitude where naturally we can inclucate our nice happy Western values - even though they have seemingly left untouched many of the poorest and ill-educated parts of our country. Such silly attitudes only, in time, create alienation from society which is exactly what is happening with many cultural groups at the moment.

In summation in many ways this whole issue strikes me as what is wrong with the left today. Rather than attempting to fulfill its traditional role as the harbinger of equality it has instead - in the wake of the collapse of Stalinist regimes - regressed to a right-wing tactic of picking out sectional groups and single issues. The fight against Islamaphobia (although one suspects Marx may never have been too keen to support an organised religion!) or homophobia may be brave but it must be conducted in the wider context of equality for all: especially a group oft forgetton in these "classless" days, the working class - or more that underclass now - of all races that is being systematically ignored by political discussion.
No, the left must regain its ground with the white working class who, having been abandonded have now reposed their allegiances in such disgusting ideologies as promulgated by the BNP or the right of the Tory Party. What is the left doing?

It needs to engage these peoples - as The bloody Sun does! - not laugh at them. It is fitting to deprecate the Neo-conservative government in America but to laugh at Christian rednecks and their culture is to laugh at the lefts failure to engage them (and their subsequent engagement by obtuse christian fundo groups) equally so for those who laugh and jest at "chavs" in Britain. To be working class - whatever your skin colour - is to be ignored now by the left, so content with its buzz words and campaigns. The attitude from the guild is often I find: "let us campaign for tuition fees so middle class kids can go to uni cheaper, but let us ignore the systematic erosion of more essential social rights such as disability allowance and the like".

No, I say that the left now needs to engage fully with both groups, whatever their beliefs, including the more "extreme" (whatever that word means) religious groups - of all shades - and the white working class who may not share our values at present (which is a result of our failure not their innate stupifity) and try to build consensus, try to understand and to try to have a two way discussion in which both sides are "educated". No more assumptions that as educated middle class students we have a right to shout shibboleths down peoples' ears and expect them to listen. No, true engagement is needed. What this means is the end of assumptions about everyone's beliefs, an end to portentous moralising and speechifying, and real action - not silly meaningless protests - but real political education and activation - the sort of grunt work done by Bolsheviks before 1917. Yes it is unglamourous but that is what a true socialist must do.

Alas, I fear too many students do not really believe what they spout out or in fact have really thought about it at great lenghth. Champaign socialists - reminiscent of the Young Ones - the lot of them. All of whom I should imagine will find nice sinecures in the city and forget all about the days when they had to partake in the indignity of speaking on behalf of the "plebs" (or at least their idealised vision of them that removes all of the working classes greatest merits and has never really existed) so they can rake it in. Which makes one think, does anything here at this university really matter? Jack Straw after all was a Maoist in his student years!

P.S. It is also my belief that such cultural supremacist beliefs are partially responsible for the miserable folly that has been the Iraq War.

Teapotboy · Black Bloc

I started reading it but it's too long cut it down and post again.

JulienP · Black Bloc

I don't actually get what you're trying to say Ferrus, you seem to be argeeing with Miss King, we need to reclaim the left? And on the religious point, what is your point there? Should we poke fun at all religions or none at all? It's long-winded and a little hard to follow, like one of my posts actually Laughing

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Teapotboy · Black Bloc

Oh and by the way putting in unneeded long words doesn't make you a good writer. And certainly not a good forummer...

SimonM · Black Bloc

This week's editorial did make me think about the whole "I'm okay with religion, but I hate organised religion" statement that people (sometimes myself, probably) come out with. And you know what I realised? It IS "religion" that I dislike, not some watered-down statement. Not any particular religion or group of people who follow it, just religion as a concept. To me, religion is on a par with irrationality, and if there's one thing in life I can't stand it's irrationality. Not sure if that was Rebecca's intention...

Teapotboy · Black Bloc

Johnny P · Black Bloc

I actually like it. I agree that the left has assumed a neo-colonialist attitude in its seeming inability to engage with other cultures and religions (including those in our own society). I would also always agree about union activists being unprinicipled careerists (well that was what i read into it anyway). With one hand they spout the same old humanist spiele while the other draws up the CV for the city. We arent all like it though...

Teapotboy · Black Bloc

Still too many long words but I think my brain is fried from teaching English to twelve-year-old German kids Sad

naivehottie · Black Bloc